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Messes don't clean up themselves — especially the stinking, rotting, heaping types that can be found in some abandoned houses.

That elbow grease comes from guys like Steven Harris. When Harris isn't managing projects and negotiating contracts as the chief operating officer for O'Brien Edwards Construction, he has been running crews around the city since last fall to attack 150 or so abandoned properties.

As the Detroit Land Bank stepped up efforts to save whatever neglected housing it can sell at auction, Harris, 46, of Detroit won a contract to clean up. We met to chat outside a home he recently cleared on the east side.

I learned that "clean up" is a relative term that ranges from picking up debris to running off wild animals.

QUESTION: You go in and do what?

ANSWER: Pretty much the auction-ready assessment.

What's that mean in English?

We just clean the place up. Get it ready for the auction.

But these homes are abandoned, right? They haven't had families in them for years.

Some of them were occupied recently. A lot of them are still occupied. So, we always knock. We knock on the door, see if someone's living in it.

You ever have to politely kick out any squatters?

Well, that's not our job. What we typically do, we'll call back to the Land Bank and say, "Hey, there's someone livin' over here." And they'll take it from there.

So what's the range of conditions you find these homes in?

Well, they're in every range possible. Just on this block alone on Kensington, we had six houses. The one down the street was really bad. I did the assessment and found it was a fire, but it could be repaired. It was just a ton of smoke damage, and it was probably 120 yards of debris that's all wet because of the weather. But once we clean it all out, you can clearly see that the house needed about $20,000 worth of work, and you could probably get a family back in there.

120 yards of debris. Put that in perspective for people. That's how many truckloads, would you say?

Usually we use 30-yard Dumpsters ... so, four Dumpsters.

Do you get in there and scrounge around yourself or are you supervising the crew that you hire?

I do both. We're usually on a really tight time line, and turnaround, so if I have to, I can change clothes. I'll change clothes, change boots.

You're not wearing a polo on those days, huh?

No. Well, I've messed up a few outfits. But I have a really good group of guys that come from ... all walks of life. And those guys get it done.

Have you made any amazing discoveries?

Well, a lot of times we run into families of raccoons. … The raccoons are the worst. The possums aren't bad. But the family of raccoons, they almost feel like they have squatter rights to these houses.

Have you made any other surprising discoveries? Abandoned houses for years have been a problem in Detroit as scenes of crimes, for example.

We haven't come across any dead bodies yet. But we've ran into a couple of houses where people had marijuana grow houses.

It sounds like backbreaking work, man. ... Do people get hurt doing this?

I haven't had any injuries except one guy threw his back out. But he was back on the job two days later. ... We've weeded through, maybe, 50 guys, to get a nice tight-knit group of 20 that we can access.

You live in the city. Are you from here?

I am. I'm from here. Graduate, Cody High School. Live in Boston-Edison. I have one of these totally dilapidated homes I worked on and pay taxes on now. ...

How do you feel about the work you're doing? You're working in the city, you go to some of the roughest neighborhoods. As a guy who's from here, how does that strike you?

I think it's a little easier. Because I can relate to a lot of the neighbors and the people. As soon as someone walks up, I'm able to defuse a situation just because I can understand. These people have encountered a lot of people scrapping. ...

I have a much better appreciation for our Detroit citizens, because they're concerned. A lot of these guys come out with guns or they come out with their dogs or flashlights and they say, "What are you doing?" or "Who's your boss?" So we have to have our credentials because we have some people who still care about their community.

What do you think is going to happen to this old town? What's the future hold?

I think it's coming back in a major way. I really like some of the things that's going on. And I'm hoping that a lot of people that look like myself, and that's been here a long time, is included in the plan. And we are. Because we've been given the opportunity to make money bringing back some of these properties.